


Fugue State

by miera



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-21
Updated: 2013-06-21
Packaged: 2017-12-15 15:49:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/851309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miera/pseuds/miera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Elizabeth's second encounter with the Pegasus Replicators has her declared a security risk, and the SGC is stonewalling Atlantis on her status.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fugue State

It took her a while to remember the right word, but now her mind has it and it repeats slowly in her head in an appropriately lugubrious fashion: fugue state.

They took her watch, of course, along with her clothes and jewelry. She tries not to look at the shapeless olive drab clothes, because she's afraid they'll suddenly become hospital white.

She has books. A lamp, a bed, a bathroom with a shower, three meals and a snack delivered during the day. The meals are the only indication of what is day and what is night.

She tried to read at first, but she was too anxious, waiting for footfalls in the hallway, for the heavily armed men to come and take her somewhere. That first few weeks on Earth had been full of needles and scans and tests and endless hours of answering the same queries over and over. She hadn't had a visitor since Jack O'Neill had been hanging around during her interrogation. She hasn't seen him or anyone since she was moved here.

Now she can't read because she can't focus long enough. Her mind drifts along, unable to hang on to a train of thought long enough to do anything with it.

Now it's just her tiny cell, her lamp, her books, and the trays coming in under the door each day and the laundry bag that cycles in and out every three days.

She asked for a pen and some paper, but it never came.

On some level she understands why this has happened. She was exposed, two different times, to an alien nanotechnology. Their scans mean nothing, their tests mean nothing. She's a security risk. The situation had to be contained.

Problem is? Now that she's contained, she thinks the Pentagon doesn't quite know what to do with her.

Many, many times she's wondered how this has been explained. She fears the worst. She fears she's dead. The people who had the resources to run the SGC, Area 51, all of it, could easily fake a death.

Now she doesn't wonder so much. Doesn't even worry about Atlantis or John and Rodney and Teyla and Ronon and everyone else and the city and the Wraith and those god damned, mother-fucking Replicators.

Now she leaves the light off all the time. It's impossible to sleep and too much effort to get up just to eat.

Fugue state.

***

He watches as Colonel Carter completes her report to Stargate Command. General Landry thanks her and the team for all their hard work. Then John pops up from behind Carter, before Landry can sever the connection from the SGC. "General? Is Dr. Weir around?"

Landry blinks for a silent moment and John knows the answer. "I'm sorry, she's not here today."

John scrunches up his forehead. "Hunh. That's weird. I sent her a message saying we'd be, you know, 'calling'-" he makes air quotes around the word, "today."

"Well, Colonel, as you know, Dr. Weir is a very busy woman," Landry says with only the mildest touch of impatience.

"Oh. Well, I'd appreciate it if you could pass along that we'd all like a chance to talk with her, maybe at the next check in?" John hasn't outright lied to a superior like this in his life. Last time he tried to bullshit anyone this directly was probably his mother when he was 9 years old.

"Sure thing, Colonel. Landry out."

Carter gives him what he supposes is an understanding half-smile and goes back to the commander's office. John avoids looking at Ronon or Teyla. He walks away from the control center and down the hall, Rodney falling into step beside him. Lorne, who had been unobtrusively lurking in the background, joins them with Zelenka (not so unobtrusive) trailing nervously in his wake.

"Major."

"Colonel?"

His face loses all its innocence and goes dangerously dark. "You have a go."

***

Several stupid minutes go by before Elizabeth realizes there's an actual sound from outside the metal door. It takes longer for her to focus, because her heart surges unfamiliarly and the rush of blood and the pounding feeling make it impossible to hear for a minute.

Feet. And voices.

She comes out of the vague haze of the past several weeks with a nauseating jolt of pure panic. The first thought in her head is, unhappily, the images of a car crash on a computer screen. The images, the car, the computer even, had never really existed, but she remembers them like they were real.

It is, after all, far easier to fake a death with the real body.

Despair swamps in on the heels of the fear. She has no weapons, no hope, not here.

The footsteps get louder, like a stumble, and she hears cursing.

Someone is outside her door, cursing in Czech.

Even as her head spins, Elizabeth thinks to herself with strange clarity, "Don't pass out."

There is a muffled conversation, followed by a hesitant voice calling more loudly, but still in Czech, "Are you there?"

She runs the 13 steps (she'd memorized the number) across the room in the dark, fully convinced she's lost what was left of her sanity. But she speaks anyway, her voice scratchy from disuse. "Radek?"

"Dr. Weir, step back from the door," another voice calls. She does, but she can hear the distinctive whine of an energy weapon. She knows that sound. There's more arguing, and then a buzzing noise. With a click, the door opens to reveal Radek, Ronon and Major Lorne standing in the corridor of Area 51, peering at her from the brightly lid hallway. Ronon has his gun drawn.

Elizabeth is sure she's dreaming. She stands there, dumbstruck and motionless.

Lorne tugs her arm and pulls her out into the corridor. Radek covers his hand with his sleeve and pulls the door to her cell shut and locks it.

Ronon jerks his head. "Let's go."

***

John's been rehearsing the speech in his head for over a week. It involves coercion and threats and attempting to take the entire blame for this whole crazy scheme onto himself. They can throw him back to Antarctica or into Leavenworth or wherever, but he'd rather not take down the entire expedition with him.

He's been holding his breath for four days. Every time the gate activates, he's waiting for Landry to appear on the monitors, demanding John's arrest. But there's been no word from Earth, and that conversely makes him even more anxious.

A couple times he's started revising his speech during briefings while Colonel Carter frets endlessly about the lost Ancient space ship that Rodney and Radek had "taken out for a spin" almost 10 days ago. Carter's worried about McKay, and Lorne, and she keeps looking at John and Teyla with guilt for having lost half of their team, because Ronon was on board when the ship vanished.

Teyla, bless her innate serenity, stubbornly repeats that there is no evidence the ship is destroyed, so hope is not yet lost.

He really, really sucks at the waiting thing.

His palpable relief when Rodney's voice comes through the radio is more genuine than anyone but Teyla knows. Mostly because the first words out of Rodney's mouth are, "We're all accounted for."

***

Within half an hour, the Ancient warship is in orbit over Atlantis. Two minutes after Rodney and Ronon beam into the city, John pulls his sidearm on Colonel Carter in the briefing room. He gets a little satisfaction that she looks utterly shocked. For one thing, it means his poker face is better than he thought. For another, it suggests Carter didn't know what had been done to Elizabeth, or that her appointment to replace Elizabeth was stage one of a plan by the military to replace the existing officers in the city in a bid to get full control of Atlantis. John would have been getting a promotion himself in about a month, along with a transfer back to Earth, and presumably would have found himself shut out of the loop on news from the Pegasus galaxy.

John's never been so grateful for Jack O'Neill's unconventional sense of right and wrong in his life.

He knows it sucks that a bunch of the people in the city are forced in the space of twenty minutes to choose whether to stay or go. But they told everyone they could trust and he and Teyla and a few of the others had been taking temperatures on other people as to what they would do if they had to choose.

Nineteen people assemble in the gate room with Carter, mostly civilian scientists with families back on Earth. The Marines stand around the gate room, watching almost laconically considering they are participating in a mutiny. Carter is the last one to go through the wormhole to Earth. John knows as soon as she gets to the other side, because Landry's on the monitor immediately, bellowing for an explanation.

Elizabeth steps up next to John. She looks like crap, wasted and deathly pale, but she fires off some choice words at Landry and John can't keep back a smirk. Three months in a detention cell in Area 51 aren't enough to stop Elizabeth.

The general turns huge eyes on John and opens his mouth to bark out the definition of insubordination, and maybe treason and who knows what else. John cuts him off before he can speak. "Don't try to find us."

They disengage the wormhole. After one brief, intense glance at Elizabeth, John runs down the corridor for the control chair. Behind him, he can hear Rodney bellowing for people to bring the star drive online.

This is almost over.


End file.
